The Realities of Minimum Wage

It’s really sad that I have to explain to people how things used to work, back when minimum wage actually did what it was supposed to do. Lots of people who just want to turn the minimum wage into a living wage are far too young to have been around when the things I’m going to talk about were true, that’s the problem, they just don’t know what the hell they’re talking about and it shows.

See, there was a time in American history where kids were expected to get jobs when they turned 16. They were expected to both do their school work and hold a part-time job to make money. I know that’s hard to believe but it’s true. They got jobs at McDonalds and the like, jobs that paid minimum wage and they learned their way around the business world, just like they learned their way around the educational world in school. It was a learning experience. They didn’t make a lot of money because they didn’t have a lot of expenses, they lived with their parents, they got virtually everything taken care of, this was just extra pocket money. They learned a work ethic, they learned how to be on time, how to get things done, how to earn money instead of just being given money, how to be a valuable employee so that by the time they got out of high school, by the time they were an adult, they knew how to hold a job and they had enough experience and enough skill to move up the employment ladder. This is how it used to work and it worked very, very well.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t without problems for the employers. Underage workers needed work permits, their schools had to agree that the teenager was doing well enough in school to be able to handle a job and kids could only work so many hours a week, they couldn’t work before a certain time and they couldn’t work after a certain time and it was somewhat tedious for managers to make schedules for kids who didn’t have open availability. One of the claims made by liberals today is that it could never have worked that way because teenagers couldn’t work during school hours and therefore, this was a complete fantasy. That ignores the fact that people in college still worked these jobs and college flexibility is a lot better. People who went to school at night could work during the day, people who went to school during the day could work at night. It all worked out, maybe not as smoothly as companies might have wished but it still worked.

The change started when many state and local governments started applying much tougher regulations to student employment. As society got more liberalized, more parents didn’t want their kids working and there were more adults who were willing to work for minimum wage, mostly because they had never learned the lessons they needed to learn when they were teenagers. Therefore, the companies that had previously hired teenagers now hired adults. It was easier for them, they didn’t have to deal with laws regarding hiring minors, they didn’t have to deal with work permits, they didn’t have to deal with limited schedules, they had people who could work as much as the companies wanted them to work without having to jump through hoops or pay attention to regulations.

It all sounds great until you realize that these new workers, the people who don’t have the skills to move up the ladder, the people who don’t know how to hold a job, also come with a lot of baggage. No longer are the workers just trying to make some pocket money, they’re trying to live on these low wages and raise a family on these low wages. This problem is only going to get worse because more and more people are refusing to take a serious job until they are not only out of high school, but out of college. Many college graduates have never held a job in their lives, they have never learned the lessons that the work world requires you to learn. They think that holding that degree in their hand ought to give them a high-paying job without going through any of the intermediary stages. It doesn’t. However, since they didn’t learn what they were supposed to learn when they were supposed to learn it, since now they have serious expenses hanging over their heads, not only living expenses and maybe a family, but tons of school loans, and they just don’t qualify to have a high-paying job because they haven’t paid their dues at a lower level, they get screwed and rightfully so. Work and school are two totally separate worlds. Getting an education does not allow you to jump past all of the introductory work experience, it allows you to go farther up the employment ladder than you might have done otherwise. It doesn’t cut the low end, it expands the high end. It’s really unfortunate that so many students think that time spent in school ought to apply to time that they should have spent at work. It doesn’t and it never will.

Today’s students, and a lot of liberals, need to realize a simple lesson. You are, almost without exception, going to spend at least some time at a minimum wage job, learning the basics of the working world. There is no real way around that. You have a choice, either do it early, when you have the time to learn without the expenses, or do it later when you are going to get yourself into trouble. It’s an unfortunate reality that most will simply party their way through college and get a degree, expecting it to be a magical document. It’s not. It might open doors but it won’t allow you to fly.

I know that this will largely go over the head of people who expect to be given things on a silver platter, but this is why the minimum wage exists and why it was never intended to be used to support a family or anyone with major expenses. Reality. You’re just doing it wrong.

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369 thoughts on “The Realities of Minimum Wage”

The minimum wage was more than just a "minimum wage". It laid a foundation and provided ground-rules for people entering the workplace for the first time. In a sense, it showed them what the minimum acceptable requirements would be. It prepared people for something better.

Unfortunately, that's not how it works today and all the young liberals seem to be confused about that. Minimum wage was never intended to be enough to live on, certainly not enough to raise a family on, you have to earn your way up the ladder, minimum wage simply establishes an entry point to the job market, not a place for the lazy to hang their hat and stay forever. Anyone who is still making minimum wage after a year in position is doing something seriously wrong.

Explain just how having a minimum wage does this as opposed to no minimum wage? You are as clueless about the minimum wage as is Cephus. As for your description of this article being excellent, it is like listening to dumb complement dumber for having said the dumbest thing of all time.

Then you ought to be old enough to realize Carter damaged our economy, Tip O'neal spent us into oblivion in spite of Reagan pushing back and Obama and Pelosi haven't met part of economy they don't want damaged.

All that sure does explain why jobs flee progressive punishment here at home.

The economy not only did poorly under Carter, but he told us it was the new normal and we'd have to get used to it. Then he bragged about turning down the White House thermostat and wearing a sweater to make up for it.

I don't give a fuck about your grandfather and how he used the word. I am using in the American Urban Dictionary way. If you don't like it I don't care but you showed you did not understand and I proved myself with a link

It's what he didn't do. Jimmy Carter might be a brilliant man but he wasn't a very good President. He didn't have the cast-iron balls necessary to get the job done and that's why the country suffered under his administration.

Carter inherited a mess, but he proved unable to do much about it. And conditions grew worse. Not sure, though, that what he inherited resulted from conservative policies. Nixon himself raised the minimum wage, instituted wage and price controls, and created the EPA–not exactly actions that strike many of us as "conservative." And, of course, as per your tactics, Nixon can always blame his own failures on Lyndon Johnson.

His administration didn\’t fail miserably, he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and was forced to step down due to political scandal. Had he not done that, he would have been a better President than Carter.

The only failure then was getting caught. Surely you don't think that any administration we've had, probably in the entire history of this country, hasn't had it's hands in cookie jars all over the place, do you?

He has to go to rush limbaugh for more propaganda and talking points. He doesn't think for himself. In his pea brain, carter is the worst man in the world because He's not a Conservative Republican. Carter was a democrat. Case closed. That's all roger needs.

6 minutes ago @ Breitbart.com – Protests to greet Ahma… · 1 reply · 0 points
I'm like jesus, I'm gonna chase you money changers out of the temple and out of town and of course out of this forum. Me and ohsoquiet and a few other REAL AMERICANS who are being PAID to be here like you Israeli PR men. I'm here to chase you filth out.

He can't admit anything that is true about his life….here is the review he wrote for his own book, what a fake!

By R. Russell on February 17, 2013
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
This story may set out with care in an ideal setting. But things evolve as the plot moves towards the murder.
Then every time the crime seems explained new twists take it in a completely different direction. By the time the real plot is revealed things are moving so fast I didn't want to put it down.

Justice can be served in many ways, the author had an original approach solving it with this story.

6 minutes ago @ Breitbart.com – Protests to greet Ahma… · 1 reply · 0 points
"I'm like jesus, I'm gonna chase you money changers out of the temple and out of town and of course out of this forum. Me and ohsoquiet and a few other REAL AMERICANS who aren't being PAID to be here like you Israeli PR men. I'm here to chase you filth out."

6 minutes ago @ Breitbart.com – Protests to greet Ahma… · 1 reply · 0 points
"I'm like jesus, I'm gonna chase you money changers out of the temple and out of town and of course out of this forum. Me and ohsoquiet and a few other REAL AMERICANS who aren't being PAID to be here like you Israeli PR men. I'm here to chase you filth out."

The shah deserved to fall, though it would have been better for all if his replacement had been more sympathetic to democratic principles.

What internal resources are you speaking about?

Lastly, the fall of the Shah and failure to develop our internal resources, had little if anything to do with why you, I and others stood in long gas lines when Carter was president. This is what I meant about you not understanding global economics and geopolitics. You are uninformed as why the energy crisis occurred, what caused the oil embargo and why many Americans stood in gas lines in the 1970s. Before you comment any more on this subject you need to take the time to educate yourself on it.

You have to remember that the Shah was in power only because he was backed by the U.S. and the Iranians did depose him, that's why he spent the rest of his life in exile living in the U.S. The Iranian people did throw him out of power and should have because he was abusive. The U.S. has a tendency to back dictators and evil people who will do our bidding.

And I don't know that Islamic Fundamentalism got it's start under Carter, but certainly the Iranian Hostage Crisis didn't help, it proved that they could take terrorist action and get the attention of the world. Today, if they took hostages, they'd instantly have a dozen drones up their ass carrying laser-guided bombs.

I realize you're paid hack to just drive people away, but seriously. Can't you gather what the story and thread are about?

6 minutes ago @ Breitbart.com – Protests to greet Ahma… · 1 reply · 0 points
"I'm like jesus, I'm gonna chase you money changers out of the temple and out of town and of course out of this forum. Me and ohsoquiet and a few other REAL AMERICANS who are being PAID to be here like you Israeli PR men. I'm here to chase you filth out."

6 minutes ago @ Breitbart.com – Protests to greet Ahma… · 1 reply · 0 points
"I'm like jesus, I'm gonna chase you money changers out of the temple and out of town and of course out of this forum. Me and ohsoquiet and a few other REAL AMERICANS who aren't being PAID to be here like you Israeli PR men. I'm here to chase you filth out."

No, Morsi was democratically elected. We put in place this military goon all asisi or whatever the hell his name is. Morsi was the voice of the Egyptian people but the US paid off a few rioters and got him kicked out. Egypt is back to being a western puppet of the west. We control Egypt because we control their military and we control how much wheat they get.

No, he didn't. They had elections. Free and open elections in Egypt and they voted in Morsi. The people of Egypt. not the US government. The US government used their influence to overthrow Egypts democracy and put in a military junta. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/23826-us-conti…

The US has still been giving Egypt aid despite the sanctions. You are wrong. The facts are we were behind the coup that put this military junta back in power in Egypt. We were behind overthrowing Morsi and installing another puppet military dictatorship.

Carter went down as perhaps the worst most ineffective president in history, the failed rescue operation is an example. The way Iran released the hostages within the hour of Reagan being inaugurated shows they had no respect nor fear of Carter.

Facts matter. And notice I have not returned the favor and told you to stop talking?

None of which had anything to do with people standing in line to get gas.
Furthermore, you will have to provide a argument that Carter was the most ineffective president in history. You will need to do this by, for example, detailing how he was worse than say Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Zachary Taylor, Herbert Hoover, William Howard Taft, and so on. Presidential historians, who are far more knowledgeable on this topic than you, don't rank Carter as the worst.

You are free to tell me stop talking if you want. The fact that you haven't is not a sufficiently good reason for me not to tell you to stop talking. Let me clarify a bit. I told you to stop talking as a courtesy to you because almost every time you write something here you actually show your ignorance on the topic. You should be embarrassed by this display of ignorance. I know you are not. But that is because you don't seem to be aware of just how uninformed most of your comments actually are.

It speaks about the attitudes from the top down.
That we had no hope, no chance and needed to settle for less.
National pride was heavily damaged due to the Iranian hostage crisis, the energy crisis, horrible inflation and our President that said we needed to adjust and get used to it.

And your lack of information and understanding about the time shows you're the one grasping.

The U.S. doesn't have a good track record with democratically elected representatives that don't do what we want them to, we tend to depose regimes and impose dictators on those who dare to elect leaders we don't like.

I don't know that conservatives did that, it was a general change in the business climate from long-term profits to short-term profits. There was a time when a company could spend time building infrastructure for larger profits down the road. That time is gone. Today, if a company misses it's profit projections even one quarter, the CEO is out on his ass. Moving operations overseas was just one more cost-cutting measure, but most conservatives saw that it was problematic. Not only does it depress the market you're trying to sell in, it ruins your ability to control your supply chain. When everything is in China and a 4 month lead time, when there are changes in the market, you really can't respond to it quickly. This has been more a neo-con problem than a conservative problem. Most of us knew better but nobody ever listens.

And when has anyone here claimed that God doesn't exist again? Oh wait, nobody ever has. No one has even suggested that. Therefore, you're still beating your strawman and trying to shift the burden of proof. We know you can't do any better.

This is a tough subject for me, as I do believe minimum wage is too low. Yet I also understand the idea of minimum wage as I worked while at school. It seems to me (however I am not an employer) that their are just not enough jobs available which is why people want a higher minimum wage as these are the only jobs.

Then the whole point is to create jobs, to allow the free market to work in the economy to make more jobs for people to take. I agree that it’s a hard economy right now but raising the minimum wage to some of the absurd levels that I keep seeing people suggest isn’t going to help the economy rebound and most of the people I’m talking about who are in these low-wage jobs were in them long before the economy tanked. Liberals tend to point to the outliers, the college-educated people working as greeters at Walmart because they can’t find another job in their field, as proof that we need to raise the minimum wage, but that’s the exception, not the rule. Most people who are in these jobs are the uneducated and the lazy, not the young and the learning. We need to get back to economic basics in this country.

Added: In fact, now that I think about it, the very first post I ever made on the very first iteration of Bitchspot was about liberals complaining that people working for Walmart are paid badly. I made that post in 2005, two years before the economic downturn. It’s not the economy that’s to blame, it’s the people.

I will agree with you what some people are asking the minimum wage to get raised to is ridiculous. In fact its not in my opinion a problem in many states. When I did see the stats, I can remember thinking more the problem lay in specific states and not everywhere. Also the exception thing irritates me, as it also does not consider what some people want" i.e.they are educated they don't want to work in Walmart" and that is not always true.

I was preparing a rebuttal of this entire article, complete with specific criticisms, evidence to demonstrate the many errors and misrepresentations in this commentary, along with a detailed analysis of the numerous flaws in this piece. Then it dawned on me. Why bother. You and the others aren't interested in actual evidence and well-constructed arguments. So I'll just sum up the problem with this comment: This piece on the minimum wage is layer after layer after layer of bullshit. You demonstrate a complete lack of knowledge about the history of the minimum wage, about its purposes, and the arguments both in favor of it as well as opposed to it. In short, this post displayed a level of stupidity, ignorance and idiocy amazing in its breadth and depth.

I simply must know, are you always this stupid or were you just making a special effort when you wrote this piece? Actual, genuine thought must unquestionably be totally alien territory for you. I can't begin to figure out what makes you so dumb. But whatever it is it works spectacularly well for you. Now I know that none of this constitutes a substantive rebuttal, but such efforts have to date been completely wasted on you. When you are ready to actually engage in real debate let me know and I'll be happy to present you with the substantive criticisms I prepared.

I don't know.
I never paid any attention to "peltonrandy" but I do know that if you use the "Guest" name, then one of us is going to have to get a new name. I have used that name now for a couple of months here, but this is the first I have seen you.

Yes, peltonrandy, destroydogma and dogfightwithdogma are all the same person. I don't use a psuedonym to hide my identity. Mine is meant to make a statement.

As for the troll remark, I have never engaged in an argument here or elsewhere over trivial issues or to derail a discussion. My remarks are always on topic and related to the main post. Now if you incorrectly define troll as a person who comes here to express a point of view that differs with you or Cephus or to challenge claims made by others here, then I suppose I am guilty as charged. But then it is a shame if you think this blog, or any blog for that matter, should be an echo chamber. How boring.

Sorry but there are no American corporations that are using actual slave labor anywhere, everything they are doing is legal, both under U.S. law and under the laws of the countries involved. Let's not be unnecessarily inflammatory.